


Responsible for Sky

by lotstowritetonight (Pigeonsplotinsecrecy)



Category: Grand Hotel (US TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Foster Care, Gen, Sibling Love, Siblings, protective brother, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 03:58:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19782793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeonsplotinsecrecy/pseuds/lotstowritetonight
Summary: Danny has always felt responsible for taking care of his older sister, and he's desperate to find out what happened to her.





	Responsible for Sky

“I guess I’ve always felt responsible for her,” Danny confessed to Alicia. He didn’t tell her the whole part about that being the reason he had come to the hotel, of course. He needed that little bit of information to stay a secret because puppy love wasn’t worth blowing his cover. He couldn’t afford to let his feelings get in the way of justice for Sky. He had to stay hardened for the sake of his sister because something bad had happened to Sky, and the people at the hotel had made it happen. He was sure of it. Sky needed his complete focus, free of distraction. She’d always been the one he couldn’t help but stay loyal to. She could run away from him all she wanted, but that wouldn’t make him stop caring. Was that what unconditional love was? If it wasn’t, it was the closest to it he had ever known. 

That innate sense of duty had long driven him, formed him into the person he grew up to be. It made him good at blending in and taking on roles. He worked best being thrown into the deep end because he had learned early on that that was the only way to keep up with Sky. He learned to be who she needed him to be because if he didn’t, his place in her life would be overwritten with whatever new person Sky was fixated on in that moment. She never did like to keep people around for too long, but he had pushed his way back into her life each time she drifted, even if it was just a quick, covert call to say hello. If Danny didn’t put in the effort, there would be nothing to ground Sky’s chaos, and he’d never see her again.

Sky was older by five years, but Danny had always been her little protector, trailing behind her to make sure the big bad world didn’t get her. If it did, he’d fight against it, even if he’d be beaten to a pulp in the effort. She was all he had left, and he wanted to protect her as much as a tagalong brother could. Even if they couldn’t be together, even if she didn’t want him around, he needed to know where she was, so his imagination wouldn’t run away with him.

When they’d first been separated, it had kept him up at night to wonder what she was doing and who she was with. Until he finally made contact with her, he’d expected the worst. He thought of her alone and cold because that was the worst possible thing his young mind could come up with. He imagined her shivering under threadbare covers, startling at the shadows. All he wanted was Sky to be there because the truth was, he couldn’t stand the feeling of being all alone in the world. All things he imagined her feeling were the things he’d felt that first night apart.

The first time Sky had run away was when she was thirteen. She came back with a tattoo, and a purple streak in her dirty blonde hair. She went to clubs and bars, and Danny didn’t like to imagine how she got in. Eventually, she’d be returned and plopped in a new family, and Danny would feel an incomparable relief to know that she was close to him again. He felt like a child who’d just gotten his favorite stuffed animal back after it had been taken for a wash. Except Sky never came back clean. She came back with an angrier expression, grime for sleeping on the streets, and a dead stare.

But she kept running away, coming back with bad boyfriends (and a few girlfriends) and a bad reputation, making it hard for child services to put her anywhere. She wasn’t a bad person, but everyone around him seemed to think so just because she had dyed hair, piercings, and a wardrobe that made mothers cover their daughters’ eyes. Danny knew better. He’d seen it himself. No, Sky wasn’t bad. She had troubles, so did he. She looked for trouble, even. But she was a good person.

Danny remembered them being little, and how sweet Sky used to be. She would make him laugh and hold him as he cried. She’d protect him from things he didn’t yet know to be afraid of. Those faded memories are why he won’t give up because that sweet girl is Sky, not the angry, jaded teenager who liked to run away from any trace of a problem.

Somewhere along the way, she had stopped protecting him, but she would always protect her.

Even so, it had made Danny so angry, the way she would always expect him to make the first move. He was always chasing her, not the other way around, and it felt like he was the only one making an effort. Did Sky not care what happened to him? Did she not want to have any family in her life?

He didn’t expect much, but he just wanted her to prove she wanted him in her life. He wanted to matter to her as much as she mattered to him, but he wasn’t sure that would ever be the case. He didn’t even know where Sky was anymore. He’d do anything to see her. She could spit in his face and tell him she never wanted to talk to him again, but oh, how relieved it would make him feel just to know she still existed, that she hadn’t finally run so far that she couldn’t come back.

He worried she might be dead. It was a valid concern given all he had seen at the hotel, and the more the mystery began to unravel, the more clues he found out, the deeper the dread in his stomach became.

He couldn’t stand the idea that this time she hadn’t run away. What if she had stopped running altogether? Maybe Sky had finally changed, settled down, and someone had taken her away just as she’d gotten her shit sorted out. There might have been a chance for Sky to finally be his sister and not a fleeting memory he tried desperately to latch unto. He didn’t want to miss that chance.

Danny knew his sister would never be a saint—he sure wasn’t one either— but he loved her. No matter what happened to her. No matter where she ran away to, she was the only family he’d ever known, and he needed answers to what had become of his sister. Because he was responsible for her. He always had been.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there's probably no one who is going to read this, but hello to you if you're here, and thanks so much.


End file.
